


thank you for letting me exist (as such a broken, ruined girl)

by tamsinb



Category: Blaseball (Video Game)
Genre: (both of which are important as always), Agender Betsy Trombone, During Siesta, Other, Touch-Averse Goodwin
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-24
Updated: 2021-01-24
Packaged: 2021-03-17 01:08:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,185
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28965855
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tamsinb/pseuds/tamsinb
Summary: Betsy and Goodwin talk about the places they're from, places to which they can never return.
Relationships: Goodwin Morin/Betsy Trombone, Jaylen Hotdogfingers/Goodwin Morin/Betsy Trombone
Comments: 6
Kudos: 19





	thank you for letting me exist (as such a broken, ruined girl)

**Author's Note:**

> Title taken from [BABY STEPS](https://blackdresses.bandcamp.com/track/baby-steps) by Black Dresses.

* * *

“No it should be fine… This shit’s finally starting back up again so we should be good to just do it the same as last season and meet up whenever our schedules put us close together, right?”

Jaylen’s voice never carried perfectly over video call, probably something to do with the fact that she was still flickering.  _ Or fliiiickerrrring or however the fuck many characters they put in that shit, _ thought Betsy. Whatever it was called tended to fuck with the video and made keeping in touch with their girlfriend a staticky affair. Watching it for too long usually gave Betsy a migraine, which is why they were currently lounging back on Goodwin’s bed, intently flicking their lighter open and shut, letting their other girlfriend’s large figure block out the screen and half-listening to the conversation, throwing in barbs and groans when appropriate.

They flicked their lighter on and watched its thin flame dance against the breath they let out from their nose for just a moment before closing it extinct. Goodwin kept her room ridiculously cold - did tall people have more body heat? - and seeing the small plume of fire helped that a bit, even if it did fog up their too-lazy-to-put-in-contacts pair of glasses. They scratched the beanie on their head and tucked their hands plus the lighter into the front pocket of their dark grey hoodie. Eyes wandering around the sparse room, passing over the half-open closet, the ballcap hung over the bedpost, and that weird poster Goodwin had up for some reason, Betsy let their gathered warmth and Goodwin’s plush, newly washed comforter, plus the lilt of conversation - Goodwin’s full and sonorous tone playing against Jaylen’s reedy voice - ease them into a hazy half-doze.

It was the sort of situation that seemed ridiculous on the face of it, some random half-decent onestar pitcher with a bad temper dating a shadowmage badass with a fuckery of stars plus a two point five foot height advantage on them. Oh and also Jaylen. Who was- a celebrity? A pariah? Treating Jaylen like either one tended to make her act real fuckin  _ weird, _ Betsy knew, so they preferred to think of her the same way they treated her, which was as a half-fragile all-gorgeous pitcher from no team in particular whose haughty demeanor they found at turns charming and intensely annoying. Jaylen seemed to like it best that way.

The arrangement made perfect sense, provided you didn’t think about too hard. Luckily, Betsy was amazing at not thinking about things.

“Betsy! Hey, earth to Bets, get over here.” Jaylen’s voice broke them out of their rest.

“Jaylen is signing off soon, Betsy! She wants to say goodbye!!” Goodwin spun around in her desk chair to address them.

“Ew,” said Betsy, hopping off the bed, hands still deep in their hoodie pocket.

“Damn Bets, that’s harsh, thought you liked me at least a little bit.” Betsy made it over to the screen and saw Jaylen’s form sitting crosslegged at one end of her bed with her laptop assumedly sitting across from her. She was wearing a tanktop and baggy pajama pants and not that it was too early to be wearing them, but knowing her Betsy got the impression Jaylen had been wearing these as she stayed cooped up inside all day.

“Hate it when you get all sappy, you know that.”

“Betsy we’ve been dating for a fucking year I would think you’d have a  _ little _ resistance built up by now.”

“Eh most of that don’t count, it was during the season, we barely have time to do shit.”

“The siesta helped!!” put in Goodwin. “Your last visit to Seattle was a wonderful time!!”

“Yeah,” admitted Betsy, “that was nice.” They ended up talking to Jaylen from off to the edge of the camera’s viewpoint, leaned over Goodwin’s desk. Jaylen’s lap was dimly visible through the flickering on the screen and they glanced at it enviously, wishing more than a bit that they were on the other end, knowing that if they were they’d be sitting on or laying across or somehow incumbent on that lap - yeah whatever, they were a bit clingy, fuck you, they were allowed.

Goodwin of course couldn’t abide that sort of thing, that had been established since second one, and Betsy didn’t mind. It never seemed necessary with Goodwin, she had enough presence that just being in the same space as her was all the intimacy Betsy needed. Still, a bitch could use some cuddles and it’s not like they would dare ask anyone else on the Garages. They would’ve made Mike do it if he was around, lord knows they’d leaned on him for this sort of thing enough in the past. Tried not to these days, though, he left behind weird shadowsubstance wherever he touched, and that shit stained like a motherfucker.

“I fucking miss Seattle, I’ll see if I can make it up before shit starts again, who knows. Bets! Did you hear my news?”

“Uh, nah, I was zoning.”

“Check it out! I finally got my own fucking place.”

“No way, the Lovers aren’t making you bunk with them?”

“Finally talked them out of it.”

“Thought that wall looked different. Thank god though, those guys are fucking freaks.”

“I know, right? Anyway check it out.”

Betsy averted their eyes so the motion plus the flickering wouldn’t make their head spin. Goodwin would probably give them the rundown later, anyway.

“Um, Jaylen!!” said Goodwin, mid tour. “What is that… disturbance in the corner??”

“Huh? Oh, that’s NaN! Say hi, NaN.”

The fan on Goodwin’s computer started rattling in its case. Betsy wondered if that was the ‘hi’.

“I can’t keep the camera on hir too long,” said Jaylen, “or else my laptop will explode. It’s happened before.”

They squinted. “You’re rooming with the fucking ex-Wyatt Mason?”

“Betsy! Rude! You’re lucky xe couldn’t hear you say that or I’m sure xer feelings would be incredibly hurt. Probably. Anyway the Lovers said if I moved out I had to take NaN with me and it seemed like the lesser of two evils.”

“They wanted rid of hir?”

“Yeahhhhh, the way I heard it they walked in during Kichiro watching Mlasked Singer and the TV cut out and started showing grim prophecies or some shit, I dunno. Anyway she flipped.”

“Fucking freaks, what’d I say.”

“Turns out xe’s like really cool, though? Buys all the groceries.”

“Huh. Whaddya know.” Betsy didn’t really know what else to say. They rubbed the back of their neck. Glanced at Goodwin, grinning as usual as Jaylen launched into some story of her misadventures that their brain decided it wasn’t going to listen to.

Goodwin had told them the story behind their smile once before - a world of mandatory morale and a veneer held up to escape the watchful eye of social order - and it stuck with Betsy in a way details about others usually didn’t. The smile wasn’t even really noticeable when you got used to it, it only got a bit weird when the things she was saying started not to match up with it. Usually didn’t, although Betsy wondered whether that was more to do with her optimistic personality, or the smile itself imbuing her speech with some levity it wouldn’t normally possess.

“Anyway,” and Betsy’s brain automatically tuned itself back in as Jaylen’s story was ending, “that’s about all I’ve got in me. Uh, nice to talk to you two. As always.”

“You too!!”

“Uh yeah. Same, Jay.”

“God I can’t wait for us to start playing again.”

“For real?” asked Betsy. “You know they’re just gonna have like some random bullshit going on to fuck with us, right?”

“I can’t  _ wait, _ Betsy,” and Jaylen had that half-manic look in her eye like she did sometimes, “remember how fucking awful the sun and black hole shit were? God that was great. How do you think they’ll one-up it, like, maybe next season there'll be a gun weather and we all get to take guns on the field and just fucking shoot each other?”

“I can’t fucking deal with you when you’re like this Jay, I don’t know how you of all people can be excited for this shit.”

“For me I don’t think anything sounds quite as bad as when it rains blood!! That sounds like the absolute worst!! I would puke!!” said Goodwin, and Betsy looked to confirm that yes she grinned as she said it.

“Morin, it’s  _ great! _ You’d love it.” Jaylen cackled.

“Ugh. Good  _ night _ Jaylen,” said Betsy.

“Oh come ooooon, you know I was just joking.”

“I get less and less sure every fucking time.”

“Gooooooooodwin! Tell them I’m joking!”

“Betsy!! Jaylen is scaring me!!”

“Oh shit, hear that Jay? You scared Goodwin, I gotta kill you now. Sorry bitch, them’s the rules.”

“Well, if you must. At this rate I’ll be giving Sebastian a run for his money.”

“You bet you will. Hey wait, how many of those were your fault, anyway?” asked Betsy.

Jaylen thought for a moment. “One and a half? If I had to guess.”

“Sounds right to me!!” said Goodwin.

“Y'all are fuckin impossible. I’m getting a migraine.”

“You’re a baby, Betsy. But, yeah, I’m logging off now. Night!”

“Goodnight, Jaylen!!”

“See ya.”

And the feed cut out. Betsy rubbed the bridge of their nose.

“Are you actually getting a migraine??” asked Goodwin. “We could turn off the lights or-”

“Nah it’s good I was just saying shit.”

“I see!! Cool!!”

Betsy bit the inside of their lip as they felt a silence descend between them and Goodwin, like it usually did once Jaylen hung up or left. Conversation always flowed fast and steady when it was the three of them but when it was just the two it was always stop and start - which was weird, right? Seeing as they were the two on the same team, spending way more time together, plus Betsy’s penchant for hanging out at Goodwin’s because their own place was an unholy wreck, shouldn’t Jaylen feel like the odd one out?

Maybe it made sense, though. After all it’s not like Betsy had gotten into this for Goodwin, it was just an add-on effect of their thing with Jaylen. Not like they were sore about it, Goodwin Morin was sick as hell and great to look at. But there was something insurmountable about her, Betsy thought, and not just the obvious thing. Betsy’s usual modes of communication, namely either trying to get a rise out of people or feigning sarcastic disinterest, both fell flat against Goodwin’s affable nature, and the only thing that really pierced was surprising her with unexpected cutesy affection. And if Betsy did that too much they got nauseous.

“Do you have plans for tonight, Betsy?”

“Uhh, think I might call up Lenny? She’s been helping me with my skateboarding, so.”

“Oh that’s right, I forgot you were learning!!”

“Yeah, I’m actually getting kinda good at it. What about you, any plans?”

“I think I may fire up a few rounds of Tlekken!!”

“That a video game?”

“Yes, one of the ones where you punch someone until you win!!”

“Isn’t that like, every game.”

“In a lot of games you also shoot people!!”

“Right.”

Goodwin swiveled around in their chair to face Betsy and they had to avert their gaze. Maybe the conversation between them always dried up because Betsy had a hard time reading her. With most people, Betsy judged how they were feeling and based most of what they said off that, a skill so ingrained in them it was almost subsconscious. But whatever sense they’d built up failed on Goodwin and left them never knowing what to say, and not in a fun and flirty way.

They wondered just how big the flannel Goodwin was wearing had to be to drape over her large frame so loosely. It hung over a ratty t-shirt tucked into jeans, no different than usual, but, well, when even  _ Betsy Trombone _ thought you could stand to dress a little nicer? It was probably an issue. At least she mixed it up with some mesh occasionally, although so did just about half the league by this point.

Betsy sighed and headed back to flop facedown on top of Goodwin’s bed. They didn’t really have plans with Lenny, they  _ could _ if they felt like calling (which they didn’t), and they weren’t really sure why they’d said they did. Mostly they just didn’t want to go back home. They felt stir-crazy. Plus that place always smelled a little like birds at this point on account of all the crows that followed them around. They propped their head up on their hands and it brought their eyeline onto the poster that sat above the bed.

It was a bit hard to tell what it was supposed to be. It wasn’t shitty in the pleasing crunchy DIY way, it was just really bad. As best as they could tell it was two things that were intended to be silhouettes in front of whatever the jumble of perfectly aligned overlapping rectangles in the back were. A swirl of seven different colors that didn’t go together, and text along the bottom that looked like it was handwritten with a computer mouse.

“I know!!” said Goodwin, noticing their attention. “I should probably get more wall decorations, shouldn’t I?? But I’ve only just acquired this apartment and many other things are higher on my list!!”

“Nah,” said Betsy, thinking back to their own place, where they’d been so excited to finally have a landlord that didn’t care about holes in the drywall that they’d tacked up everything they could think of, drawings and photos and scraps of lyrics they’d never finish. Maybe that was why it felt so fucking claustrophobic in there. “I think you’re probably good. I was just trying to figure out. What it was?”

“My first concert poster!” beamed Goodwin, with a smile anyone could tell was genuine.

“You were in a band before the Garages? Uh, just assuming. I mean, not even our stuff looks  _ this _ uh… unique.”

“Well, I wouldn’t call it much of a band.”

“Oh shit wait I get it, that one’s you!” said Betsy, pointing at one of the silhouettes.

“Exactly!! I didn’t yet have my shadowarms so my profile was much less distinctive!!”

Betsy had figured the fact that one figure was much larger than the other was just one mistake among many.

“See,” continued Goodwin, “there we stand in the oppressive cityscape of Dark Seattle! And here is the street and here is the fog that’s always on the street…”

“Why is the fog like eighty colors though.”

“Artistic liberties!!”

“Okay, so wait. If that one’s you, then who’s the other one?”

“Right. Um!! How should I describe her,” and Betsy noticed Goodwin’s smile pressed a bit more together at the lips. “She was… somewhere in between a partner and a partner-in-crime, I think!! Not much time for conversations about feelings while on the run!!”

“Oh damn so you were like on your twin outlaw shit?”

“Exactly! Dual menaces of the cyber city!!”

“And in a band? That’s fucking sick.”

“I’m not sure if I’ve mentioned, but in my world free participation in music was outlawed!! All participation controlled centrally, output limited to a few approved band units!! Almost like your world’s record industry, but far far worse!!”

“Damn. That’s saying something. So like, were instruments illegal too?”

“As a matter of fact, yes!! I performed the show with one of my guns’ alternators rigged up to an alarm that functioned as the amplifier!! Basically a synth, if you think about it!!”

“And uh. How’d that sound.”

“Fucking dreadful!!”

“Hell yeah, sounds like my kind of music.”

“But her singing saved it!! I consider it a very successful show, all things considered!! Well, until it turned into a gunfight.”

“You got caught?”

Goodwin nodded. “She had to provide cover fire while I reassembled my instrument back into a weapon.”

“Wow. That’s fuckin poetic.”

“Anyway, she made posters for the event and we distributed them among the backchannels of the underworld!! I couldn’t bring my copy with me, so I did my best to recreate it once I was here!! I’m not much of an artist, but I did my best!! I wish I could have done her design more… justice, however.”

Betsy looked over the poster again. “So like. Did you draw it with a fuckin computer mouse?”

“Well, your world doesn’t yet have neural interlinks so yes, I had to use the manual interface.”

“Well, you did… uh. A job.” Betsy felt a little sheepish for being so hard on it. “Little heavy-handed with the airbrush, if I had to say. Hey uh, you mind if I draw you a version that doesn’t look like absolute shit?”

“You draw?”

“Sketch, mostly, I mean I’m not  _ great _ but I could sure do a hell of a lot better than this. Uh. No offense.”

“None taken!! I know it looks like dogshit.” Grin. “But I would be overjoyed for you to draw me a version!! What an uncharacteristically sweet offer, Betsy!!”

“Yeah, yeah, don’t get used to it. Just got sick of looking at this thing on the wall.” Betsy flipped over onto their back and their binder shifted uncomfortably under their hoodie. They started fidgeting with it to try to put it back.

“I had no idea you were artistically inclined!! Shouldn’t that be the kind of thing I know about someone I’m dating??”

“Eh, not your fault, it’s not something I really make a big deal of. Plus I mean I’m not even that good…” A few more fidgets and squirms in place and they felt a bit better. “Wait, haven’t you been over to my place? I have that shit all over the walls.”

“Two responses!! First: your wall decorations are not the most noticeable aspect of your apartment!! Second: you did those?? They were so lovely I figured one of your other friends must have done them!!”

“Do I look like the kind of bitch who has friends?”

“Fair point!!”

“Damn, harsh, don’t you know you’re not supposed to agree with stuff like that?” said Betsy without affect, stretching their arms backwards. “You’ve got me dead to rights Goods, dunno how I’m ever gonna recover.”

Goodwin laughed and Betsy yawned and the conversation paused just long enough for Betsy’s mouth to offer up a poorly thought through addition to the conversation.

“So, the other girl. She didn’t, uh, make it out?”

Goodwin’s brow dropped immediately and Betsy reaffirmed their silent conviction that they were the dumbest motherfucker alive. They tried to mutter some apology or walk it back but Goodwin was talking before they could.

“She did not. It happened very quickly, so I’m still not entirely sure, but. There was a way to escape, into the Shadows!! We went together and were caught at the last step. A last stand, you might stay!!” A deep breath. “Anyway, after the carnage and after I’d made it through I looked back to find her and she wasn’t there.”

“Fuck, dude.”

“Fuck dude indeed!!”

“Yo if you ever go back in to get her you’d better take me, okay? Uh, not that I’d be like, great against guns and stuff but. You know.”

“Thank you, Betsy. But I’m almost certain she would have wanted me to continue forward. And so that is what I try to do!!” A pause, and the faintest hint of a sigh. “It’s just-”

“Yeah?”

Goodwin pressed her eyes closed. “I just sometimes wonder how successful I’ve been at doing so!! I still carry this smile around, and these arms!! I sleep with a lamp on because if it gets too dark I feel like I’ll open the window shade back onto that sunless hellscape!! I still carry so much of that place with me!! And…”

Her mouth was closed as horizontal as they’d ever seen it and her eyes focused somewhere on the ground by the door. Betsy sat up on the bed. Goodwin’s arms behind her were blurring at the edges.

“I don’t consider myself a violent person, you know?? Despite what I was forced to do. And so when I arrived here I was excited to put such things behind me and yet… in a splort like this, pacifism is always temporary!! We write songs about fighting gods and then we do the fighting and sometimes we win and sometimes we don’t but the fact remains that abstention is not an option!! And it makes me feel like the absence of violence is my exception, rather than my rule!! And I just wonder if there’s anything of me left untouched or if I’m just irrevocably fucked up to the core!!”

Goodwin was breathing heavily, gasping as she turned to Betsy, looking like she only now remembered there was another person in the room. And Betsy clamped down on whatever unnecessary response their tongue was forming, instead patting on the bed beside them. Goodwin nodded briefly and Betsy shifted to the side as Goodwin flopped down, blue hair splayed out around her, legs planted firmly on the ground next to Betsy’s dangling in air. Betsy laid back to match.

“I wish I didn’t miss it,” continued Goodwin, “but it’s hard to say I don’t. Or maybe what I miss is the context?? The proximity to the things that defined me made me feel… continuous!! And now I feel adrift and cut off. Not to mention the fact that it is the same place that produced her!! I don’t know. I apologize, I feel like I’m rambling!!”

Betsy shook their head, which looked more like rolling it back and forth along the bed. “Trust me Goodwin I get it. I get it fucking perfectly.”

“I know you do, Betsy. I think that’s why I feel okay telling you!!”

Betsy took a long breath out of their nose. “It’s okay to hate where you came from, ya know.”

“It’d be a lot easier if I could, I think!!” Goodwin closed their eyes. “I just worry it would lead to hating myself.”

“Damn,” said Betsy, turning towards her on an elbow, “I mean it sounds like you fucked up letting it get its claws into you like this. Shoulda just thrown everything from there away the second you crossed over. Way easier, trust me.”

Goodwin propped herself up in turn. “Are you implying that’s what you’ve done??”

“Uh, yeah? Cut off all my hair, transed my gender, sorta thing. It’s sick, you should try it, I mean you’ve already got a start on the hair so like.”

“What about your knife?”

“Well okay I brought that over but it’s hella sick you can’t expect me to get rid of-”

“And the jacket?”

“Well I mean the one I’ve been wearing  _ lately _ I got from a surplus store like a month ago but-”

“And your whole… general demeanor?”

“What the fuck are you trying to say, huh? Get the fuck over here I’ll fuckin-”

“Do you see what I’m getting at??”

Betsy met Goodwin’s gaze, both of them having edged a little closer together during their back and forth. They sighed and flopped back down faceup on the bed. “...Yeah. I mean, of course I do. I know better than fuckin anybody how like, surface level all this shit is. I dunno.”

They slid a hand in under their beanie and ran their fingernails across their scalp. They’d been growing out their hair and it was long enough now that each lock sat in one or two loose curls, frizzing out from under the brim. Maybe they’d cut it all off before the season started, or bleach it like they’d done when they first got here. Maybe they’d just let it keep growing. Who could say.

“Like I spent so long trying to pile all this macho shit on top of me to hide behind and keep people away so they couldn’t fuck with me like they used to. And like. I dunno. Guess it kinda fuckin worked, for all the good it did me. And maybe whatever was underneath has been changing and growing this whole time without me noticing or maybe it’s just the fucking same immature scared little Betsy I was back before I pushed all that shit under the bed. Who knows. I definitely fucking don’t. I’ve got no fucking idea who I am under all this shit. You know?”

“I do. Or maybe I’m worried that the only  _ me _ there is, is the one that place built.”

“Yeah. ...Yeah.”

“And so much has happened since I got here!!” Goodwin popped up onto her feet, looming over Betsy like a cumulus cloud. “It’s been a whirlwind and it’s been fun but now that things have settled I look around and… it feels like I missed the chance to do something.”

“Doesn’t help that we spent the whole siesta laying around and calling Jay instead of like. Rigorous self improvement or whatever the fuck. I dunno, sounds fuckin useless anyway.”

“I doubt I would even know where to begin!!”

“Well it doesn’t have to be that fuckin hard. Here, why don’t we like. Okay, Betsyplan coming up, stay with me.” They hopped up too, leaning back on the bedpost. “I’ll look out for you, tell you the kind of person you look like to me, and if you don’t like that then you just do something different, and if you slip back into old habits I’ll stab you. And then, like, you do the same for me. How’s that sound?”

“That sounds nice, I think!! Wait, Betsy Trombone, did you just come up with a viable plan for self-improvement??”

“What, like it’s hard?” laughed Betsy.

“I am going to start this thing now!! Betsy, you always talk about not being smart, but I don’t think that’s true!! You’re very insightful and you don’t have to downplay it!!”

“Oh shit we’re jumping right into it? Uhhhh, okay Goodwin! At first I thought you were kind of a pushover cause you went along with other people’s plans all the time, but it turns out that when it comes to shit that matters you’re way good at putting your foot down! And everyone listens to you and I think that’s sick.”

“Betsy!! You are fiercely protective of the things that are important to you and I think it’s wonderful!!”

“Aaaaaaa-!” Betsy could feel their face starting to flush but they pressed on under the glare of Goodwin’s larger than ever grin, “okay okay okay uhhh Goodwin you’re a great fucking listener and you’re awesome at making sense of other people’s thoughts!!”

“Betsy you are a good listener as well and you are great at cutting through obfuscation to the core of what the other is saying!!”

“Aaaaaa _aaaaa_ _okay I can’t fucking take it anymore I’m gonna fucking explode!!!”_ Betsy crouched down, hands over their ears.

"Not a chance, Betsy!! I'm getting better and I'm taking you with me!!"

"No, Goods, seriously, I'm like  _ way _ not good at this mushy shit. I might legit puke."

"Hmm!! You do look rather out of sorts. Let's stop for now, then!! But don't think I'll let you forget about this!!"

"Nah I know ya won't,” smirked Betsy, peeking up at her. “You're committed and dependable and that's what I love about you."

"Betsy Trombone!!!! That was a sneak attack!!!! I am wounded!!!!!!" Goodwin stumbled backwards in mock surprise, swooning with her hand across her forehead as she fell melodramatically across the bed. 

"Heh heh. Gotcha bitch."

“I am fading… Betsy, listen to my final words…”

Betsy popped up to their feet. “Yeah Goods, what’s up?”

Goodwin cracked open one eye. “You are so fun and wonderful and a light in my life!!!!”

“G- Goodwin!!”

“I am so glad that we have been brought together!! I love dating you and I love you also!!!!!”

“aaaaaaaaaAAAAAAAAAAAA”

“Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!”

“Wait a minute,” asked Betsy, unclenching their fists, “why are you screaming?”

“Because you were screaming! It happens sometimes!!”

Betsy snorted. “Goodwin you fucking rule, you know that?”

“You as well!! Thank you for listening. I feel like… if it’s the two of us, somehow we’ll make it through anything!!”

“Fuck, you’re laying it on a little heavy, don’t you think?”

“Nope!! I just think you are deflecting!!”

Betsy sighed and tilted their head back. “Fiiiiiine. Uh, you too Goodwin. Glad you’re here. With me, also. Yeah.”

“Hmmmmm!! Okay, that’ll work!!”

“Fuck off, it’s all you’re getting.”

Goodwin laughed and Betsy smiled too and it didn’t feel so important that they find the next thing to say, for once.

“Wait, Betsy, didn’t you say you were skating tonight?? I would hate to keep you!!”

“Oh, uh… don’t worry about it. Hey, do you wanna go jam or something? We could head down to the Garage and I’ll drum and you can play that goofy-ass guitar and it’ll be sick.”

“That sounds fun!! I don’t believe we have anything to practice though??”

“Nah, that’s why it’s a jam, you can just make up whatever the fuck and play as loud as you want and not a motherfucker in the world will tell you to shut it off.”

“That sounds good!! I think I’d like that a lot.”

“Hell fuckin yeah.”

*******

“Okay Betsy what do I… do??”

“I dunno just shred. Do whatever. That’s what I’m gonna do.”

“Okay, I’ll just… Aghg!! Betsy!! That’s way too fast!!”

“Keep up bitch!! Play faster!!”

“I haven’t been playing real instruments for very long!! Cut me some slack!!”

“Just think of it as fuckin motivation to get better!! Okay, now sing!!”

“I have to sing too??? What should I sing???”

“I dunno, you’re a loud person, just shout phrases you like!”

“Ummmm….. Burning Incense!!! Field Day!!! Supercollider!!!”

“That’s fucking weak Goodwin you gotta shout from like the back of your throat really fucking GROWL some shit!!!”

“Could you play fewer cymbals so I can hear myself think???”

“No!!!!!!!”

_ “SINGED HAIR!!!! AFTERBURNER!!! MASS IMPLOSION!!!!!! END OF DAYS!!!!!” _

“Aw fuck yeah now we’re talking!!! Keep it coming!!!”

Just then, the door to the practice room swung open, and Olly Mueller stuck his head in, hands over his ears.

“What the fuck is going on in here??”

“Can’t you tell dumbass, we’re shredding!!!” yelled Betsy, not letting up.

“Betsy I thought you said no one would say anything!!!”

“This IS no one, Goodwin!!”

“Real fucking funny, Betsy!! Can you two turn it down??”

_ “HELL FUCKING NO!!!!!!!!” _ shouted Goodwin, far too close to the microphone.

“Holy shit, Goods!”

“Take that, Oliver!!”

“Whatever,” Olly rolled his eyes. “Just don’t break anything, you two!!”

“No promises!!” yelled Betsy.

The door closed behind him and Olly walked down the hall, shaking his head. Music bled out from every miniscule crack around the door, screaming and crashing and wailing and raw. It echoed through every inch of the Garage, two instruments playing at the same time, every so often, either by accident or design, phasing into a brief moment of perfect synchronicity.

**Author's Note:**

> I was sad that in the fic I established this throuple in the Betsy/Goodwin axis of it didn't really get any screentime, and I finally had an idea for how to approach it! This was fun. I like them!


End file.
